Social Media For Communications Strategy led to Toronto Police Service Corporate Communications Issues Manager Meaghan Gray @MrsMeaghanGray Trending on Twitter at the 2015 Toronto Pride Parade! and @TorontoPolice reaching close to 1 million twitter accounts! #PrideTO

There was an entire team approach to ensuring the success and safety of the Pride Festivities both on and off social media. What was really exciting for me in my role was to watch the amazing social media being done by our Toronto Police fully social media trained colleagues Officers Danielle Bottineau (Twitter @LGBTCop) and Henry Dyck of the LGBTQ Internal Support Network (Twitter @TDotGayCops)

On Sunday June 28 for the Pride Parade, we also welcomed a dedicated cop duo Constables Laurie McCann (Twitter @TheCoffeeCop) and Alex Li (Twitter @CopWhoLovesCars) as well as our Toronto Police Service Corporate Communications Issues Manager Meaghan Gray (twitter @MrsMeaghanGray) who were using social media exclusively for community engagement.

Pride in Toronto is arguably the largest single annual event, although many will say that “Caribana” (now formally known as the Scotiabank Caribbean Festival) is largest.

It was interesting to learn from Supt Ferguson that this was his 35th Pride Parade that he worked as a police officer since the parade started in 1981. This means that in one way or another he has worked every single Toronto Pride Parade. He quietly admitted that relations were not always this great between Toronto Police and the gay community. Supt Ferguson beamed with Pride throughout the day knowing that he was commanding a cohesive team. His final orders to his officers before being deployed were “Have Fun”

And … Have fun we did!

By the end of the day, Supt Ferguson asked if we had any analytics to show the reach in social media.

For $20 on TweetReach a report indicated that 948,070 twitter accounts had been reached with 10,216,236 impressions! (Note: Twitter Canada say that third party analytics programs like this identify the potential reach and not the actual reach like twitter analytics do.) See ads.twitter.com for more info

Back in Toronto, it was exciting to see the worldwide reach of social media good with the hash tag #PrideTO. I was proud to show to colleagues a tweet from Twitter Canada’s News And Government representative Steve Ladurantaye showing the reach of social media worldwide

In conclusion, whether you agree with the accuracy of the ‘TweetReach’ analytics results or not, it is clear that the community of Toronto on the streets at Pride and in social media have huge Klout for social media good!… The police in Turkey.. well..will leave that up to you to decide!